1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic tune selection and playback apparatus for supporting a storage medium in which a plurality of tunes are stored and for selecting a tune specified by tune-specifying information.
2. Background
With a conventional automatic tune selection and playback apparatus, when inputting information representative of a desired tune, i.e., tune-specifying information, the information is inputted by operating switches or a key on a keyboard marked with numerals or alphabet thereon. Inputting requested tunes through a keyboard is a time consuming job if a large number of specified tunes or requests are requested, causing dissatisfaction to people who request playback of the tunes. Further, playback of the tunes may not be in the order in which they were requested. Also a person who makes a request may not be aware when the tune he requested will be played back. Further, when somebody other than the person who requested the tune currently being played wants to know the words of the tune, he is unable to readily determine the words. The order of playing back the requested tunes cannot be determined at the receiving side without regard to the order of receiving requests. The list of tune names that can be requested has conventionally been maintained in a book, and is subjected to wear and tear. Further the tune name list book has to be replaced by a new book when adding new tunes to increase the number of tunes that the user can request.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide an automatic tune selection and playback apparatus capable of efficiently accepting request-tunes even when the requests are congested.
An automatic tune-selection and playback apparatus according to the present invention includes a playback device for supporting a storage medium in which a plurality of tunes are stored, and for selecting a specified tune in accordance with a tune-specifying information to playback the selected tune; a plurality of terminal units each of which receives and stores the tune-specifying information; and a central control circuit for sequentially reading the tune-specifying information from each of the terminal units as data specific to that terminal so as to supply the playback device with the tune-specifying information.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an automatic tune-selection and playback apparatus capable of efficiently accepting request-tunes in which each person who requested a tune can determine the order of playback of the tunes.
The central control circuit decides the order of playing back requested tunes corresponding to the respective terminals units on the basis of the tune-specifying information that have been read from the terminal units and reports the order of playing back the tunes.
Still another object of the invention is to provide an automatic tune selection and playback apparatus capable of handling the request of tunes in which information on the tune currently being played back can be easily obtained. Thus, according to the invention, the apparatus further includes a display circuit provided at each terminal unit, wherein the central control circuit transfers tune information of a tune currently being played back to the terminal units, the terminal units displaying a display on the basis of the tune information of the tune currently being played back by circuit of the display means.
According to yet another embodiment of the invention, the automatic tune-selection and playback apparatus comprises a playback device for supporting a storage medium in which a plurality of tunes and a plurality of tunes including tune contents character information are stored, and for selecting a specified tune in accordance with a tune-specifying information to playback the selected tune; a plurality of terminal units each of which receives and stores the tune-specifying information; a central control circuit for sequentially reading the tune-specifying information from each of the terminal units as data specific to that terminal so as to supply the playback device with the tune-specifying information; and a display circuit provided at each terminal unit; wherein the central control circuit transfers the tune contents character information outputted from the playback device to the terminal units, the terminal units displaying a display on the basis of the contents character information by means of the display circuit.
Still a further object of the present invention is to provide an automatic tune selection and playback apparatus capable of accepting tune requests and of easily setting the order of playing back of the requested tunes. Therefore, an automatic tune selection and playback device according to the invention comprises a playback device for supporting a storage medium in which a plurality of tunes are stored, and for selecting a specified tune in accordance with a tune-specifying information to playback the selected tune; a plurality of terminal units each of which receives and stores the tune specifying information; a central control circuit for sequentially reading the tune-specifying information from each of the terminal units as a data specific to that terminal so as to supply the playback device with the tune-specifying information both in accordance with priority of the specified playback order and corresponding to the respective units.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide an automatic tune selection and playback apparatus capable of accepting tune requests in which a tune name list in the form of a book is not required. The automatic tune-selection and playback apparatus according to this embodiment of the invention comprises a playback device for supporting a storage medium in which a plurality of tunes are stored, and for selecting a specified tune in accordance with a tune-specifying information to playback the selected tune; a plurality of terminal units each of which receives and stores the tune-specifying information; a central control circuit device for sequentially reading the tune-specifying information from each of the terminal units as data specific to that terminal so as to supply the playback circuit with the tune-specifying information; and a display circuit provided at each terminal unit; wherein the central control device has a storage means for storing tune name list information, the central control means reading the tune name list information from the storage device to transfer to the respective terminal units, the terminal units displaying a display on the basis of the tune name list information.